NEWS

Minister Radosław Sikorski spent the whole day in London talking to major British media outlets about the Polish perspective on the future of the European Union and negotiations of the new EU budget, including the significance of the Brussels meeting of the Friends of Cohesion. Minister Sikorski has met with journalists from The Economist and editors of the Financial Times and The Times. The chief of Polish diplomacy was also interviewed on BBC Hardtalk by Stephen Sackur.

On BBC HardTalk, Minister Sikorski explained the differences between the Polish and British approaches to negotiations of the EU Multiannual Financial Framework. “If freezing the EU budget is really Great Britain’s aim, then Poland will agree to it, because this is what the European Commission proposed,” said Minister Sikorski. “What is at issue here is that the current British proposal will translate into deep cuts – as high as euro 100 billion – in the EU budget.”

Talking to British journalists, Minister Radosław Sikorski also explained that blocking negotiations on the EU multiannual budget would mean triggering a procedure of adopting annual budgets. This would not necessarily be good for Great Britain as well, as it would open up a discussion on rebates on membership fees to European institutions and would lead to freezing, at a high level, Common Agricultural Policy spending, which the British want to avoid.